Congress is requiring that the Federal Housing Finance Agency enforce regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in regards to their portfolios. They must have a sufficient amount of capital, to ensure their continued ability to dole market funding by generating more securities from home loans. Their portfolios must also have mortgage and securities that are backed by home loans. Combined Fannie and Freddie provide the largest amount of funding for the housing market, by buying mortgages from lenders to hold or create securities. While their portfolios had been capped by regulators, right now they sit at $1.7 trillion. During the past two years in the midst of the market crisis, the government relied more of Fannie and Freddie as a means to keep the market running, since investors had stopped buying mortgage-backed securities.

New capital rules will also be developed for the U.S.  12 regional Federal Home Loan Banks, as they establish funding for over 8,000 banks nationwide. They are trying to lower the amount of lending reduction the banks must do in order to bulk up their finances. These banks provide advances (low-cost loans) to member institutions by taking collateral in exchange. Said collateral can come in many different forms, such as mortgage-backed securities. However, when the value of those securities lowers, the home-loan banks finances suffer and many fear they will come in below their set current capital requirements. This is a main reason why the FHFA may create stricter regulations for the banks, which of course would inhibit their lending ability. That however is not a bad thing according to Thomas Stanton, a John Hopkins University regulator. Stanton stated that, "The problem of the last five years is that people were doing too much lending,...They cannot be as big as everyone would like."

James Lockhart, the director of the FHFA commented on the coming developments stating, "The regulations will address items critical to the safety and soundness of the 14 government-sponsored enterprises, which play a vital role in the nation's mortgage market,". While this is true, many analysts feel the fate of Fannie and Freddie is more of a pressing concern then those of the 12 regional banks. Jonathan Koppell, an associate professor with the Yale School of Management, supports this view saying, "What Congress decides to do with these two companies is the real question,".

Although Fannie and Freddie remain the top mortgage giants, they too continue to feel the housing market blow. Last Friday, Freddie announced that they would ask the U. S. Treasury for $35 billion in assistance, aside from the $13.8 billion already taken from the $100 billion made available in federal funds when Freddie was put into conservatorship last September.